1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle interior member having an air bag door portion, and more particularly to a door portion of an air bag system formed in the vehicle interior member, such as an instrument panel. The present invention further relates to a method for molding the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally a vehicle interior member having an air bag door portion such as the instrument panel is known and disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. HEI 9-156443.
In this instrument panel having the air bag door portion, a three-layer skin including a foam layer as an intermediate layer is disposed on a surface (design face) of a resin substrate constituting a body portion and the air bag door portion of the instrument panel.
However, in order to mold the product having the air bag door portion of the instrument panel invisible (designed to have a relief such as a tear line invisible), the following process is required. A three-layer skin 72 having a cut portion 70 for a tear line at a skin side formed on a back surface thereof is set in an upper mold 74 of molds 74 and 76. Then, a resin 78 is injected into the mold as shown in FIG. 9. In this case, when the resin 78 moves along an injection direction (a direction shown by the arrow X in FIG. 9), a foam layer 72A of the three-layer skin 72 is compressed by the resin 78 toward the upper mold 74 (a direction shown by the arrow Y in FIG. 9). As a result, each thickness of two sections of the three-layer skin 72 separated by the cut portion 70 becomes different. Thus, the resin 78 in a molten state flows through the cut portion 70 into the foam layer 72A that is not compressed. As a result, the foam layer 72A is damaged to form, for example, an undesirable recess on the design face of the product, which degrades the quality of the appearance. For this reason, the conventional technology has never achieved an air bag door portion that is invisible.